[Foundation-l] New projects opened

[Samuel Klein]

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 7:16 PM, Erik Zachte<erikzachte at infodisiac.com> wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
>
>> I am of course thinking about the list of 1000 articles
>> each wikipedia should have. Just completing a
>> significant part of that list is an accomplishment for
>> a tiny pool of editors, but is within reach, and
>> can serve as a useful incentive.
>
> Here is the url
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_Wikipedia_should_have

This was used as a wiki-building exercise in swahili in 2006, and it
was rather successful.
http://sw.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Makala_za_msingi_za_kamusi_elezo


> I hope one the outcomes of
> the strategic
> process will be that Wikimedia starts to invest more actively in outreach to
> parts of the world that are in need.

Agreed.  Though our greatest asset when it comes to outreach such as
this may be the local and diaspora community members who are active
editors/readers/supporters.


> The current 'laissez faire' / 'trickle down' policy where we wait till
> people start helping themselves
> has not been very productive for some parts of the world.

Agreed.  Even in English, this hasn't led to productive relationships
with contributors in some subject areas.


> Maybe pay for translation of a basic set of articles to any language with
> more
> than 1 million speakers, which is deemed in need of support, per yet to be
> defined criteria?

I'm not sure that paying for translation is needed, or the best
available incentive.  Embassy-sponsored contests and writing sprints
seem like a fine idea to me.  Fame in an educational or national
context seems to me likely to attract potential long-term
contributors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-05-18/Multilingual_contests

 Certainly we should expand the community to actively include people
who already write in that language who wish to help, whether or not
they currently are able to edit.

> This could serve as incentive, show that we really care, serve as
> example of what could follow,
> it would make our content also appear in Google in that language,
> which for many of us already involved has been a starting point.
<
> Of course there are practicalities to consider. Who guards the 100 essential
> articles in a language until a community self-organizes?
> We might need a variation of the current policies for new projects, where
> now an active community is a prerequisite.
> Instead we might publish those 100 article as a protected showcase with
> different procedures to open up the wiki for general editing.

Why protected?  The small wiki monitors are quite able to keep a new
wiki from being overrun.  I do see your point that having articles
attracts contributors, as well as the other way around.  There is a
correlation between # of pageviews and the amount of material on a
project.
That is one sense in which bot-addition of new material is valuable in
building a language community.

SJ